Joe Pass Jazz Guitar Licks

Joe Pass is undoubtedly one of the greatest jazz guitarists to ever play the instrument. He could play single-line solo, chord soloing phrases, perform in a trio, duo or solo setting with the best of them, and always be instantly recognizable by his tone and approach to the melodic and harmonic sides of jazz guitar playing.

Joe Pass started playing guitar when he was 9 and he was already playing at weddings when he was 14. In his 20’s he moved to New York, where Joe Pass got captured by the sound of bebop, but unfortunately, he also picked up a habit well known to jazz musicians of that time: heroin.

The next decade was wasted for Joe Pass, spending time in jails, until he entered Synanon, a drug rehabilitation center. In the center, he formed a band with other patients and recorded the album Sounds of Synanon, which was very well received by the jazz critics.

After 3 years in the center, he was cured of his addiction and he could move on with his musical career. He started playing in Los Angeles and got involved in the studio scene. In 1973 he recorded Virtuoso, an album that made him famous for solo jazz guitar playing.

Joe Pass recorded a duo album with Ella Fitzgerald and played with a lot of famous jazz musicians like Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Oscar Peterson.

In this lesson, we’ll be digging into 6 classic Joe Pass sounding licks.

After learning these lick in the given key, at a number of different tempos, check out the practice tips below to take this idea further and properly integrate it into your jazz guitar phrases and solos.

Joe Pass Lick 3

A nice ii V I lick starting with a pattern and then going to a Bbm7 arpeggio over the Db7 (sounds like Db13):

Bbm7 Arpeggio

Bb

Db

F

Ab

Played over Db7

13

1

3

5

Listen & Play Along

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Joe Pass Lick 4

In this Joe Pass inspired chord lick, you can hear many of the idiomatic sounds that make up many of Joe’s solo guitar licks and phrases.

For this lick, try breaking it down into the mini phrases that make up each bar, that way you will be able to extract these ideas and use them in different combinations when coming up with your own solo jazz guitar lines.

Listen & Play Along

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Joe Pass Lick 5

This chord lick uses a favorite rhythm from Joe’s solo guitar work, you can hear a similar idea during his version of Have You Met Miss Jones.

The idea is that you break up the chord into the bass note and the top 3 notes of the shape, alternating back and forth until you get to the chromatic approach notes in the last two 8th notes of each bar.

Try accenting the chords only, not the bass notes, to bring an added Joe sound to the mix with this line.

Listen & Play Along

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Joe Pass Lick 6

This last lick is a bluesy phrase with double stops that works great over ii V Is.

Listen & Play Along

Here are a couple of important things that you can notice and take away from this lick, besides learning the lick itself.

Try bringing these larger concepts into your practice routine as you apply these ideas to soloing over ii v I chords, other chord progressions and full tunes in your daily practice routine:

The rhythm used in the first half of the Gm7 bar, which is a common jazz rhythm used by many great players over the years, an 8th-note rest followed by an 8th-note and then an 8th-note triplet.

The bluesy double-stops and Ab-A (blue note), in the second half of the first bar of the lick.

Joe’s use of an enclosure (B-A-Bb), around the b7 (Bb) of the C7 chord in the second bar.

The octave displacement between the last note of the enclosure (Bb) and the next note, A an octave higher than expected.

Joe’s voice-leading between the last note of the C7 chord (F) and the first note (E) of the Fmaj7 chord, resulting in a smooth, half-step movement between those two chords.

Joe Pass was a true legend and probably the best all-around jazz guitarist who ever lived. Learning his lines can help you get into the ears, hands, and thought-process of this legendary player.